Dr James Wilkinson

Blood supply to the heart: His main specialist area of interest is coronary intervention, which is treating arteries that supply the heart with balloons and scaffolds called stents. He is highly experienced in all aspects of these procedures and has specialist interests in complex intervention and opening chronic total occlusions (CTO-longstanding blockages), a service he set-up at Southampton. Most procedures are done via the artery in the wrist (called radial intervention), which is safer and often preferred by patients. He regularly does these procedures at University Hospital Southampton (UHS) where he is regularly on call for the regional heart attack service. Although angiograms, to look at the blood supply to the heart, are available at the Spire procedures to treat arteries with stents are only available at UHS.

Valves: He has specialist in minimally invasive procedures to treat leaking mitral and tricuspid valves. This often involves clips, a procedure called transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (TEER). However, occasionally new valves can be inserted in the mitral position. These procedures are mainly for patients not suitable for open heart surgery. He helped his colleague Professor Mahmoudi set up this service at UHS in 2022. They regular NHS lists to treat patients with mitral and tricuspid regurgitation and these procedures are now available at Southampton Spire Hospital,

Other procedures: He inserts permanent pacemakers on a regular basis.
He also has an interest in renal denervation (RDN) techniques to treat high blood pressure (hypertension) and established this service at UHS, the first in Hampshire, however these procures have not been available since 2014.

His other cardiology interests include general cardiology and echocardiography. James also has an interest in delivering cardiology services in the community and delivered cardiology clinics in a GP surgery in Porchester, Fareham from October 2011 to January 2013. He was an Honorary Consultant at Salisbury, where he did procedural lists twice a month from 2011-2014.

James qualified from St George’s Hospital Medical School, where he was President of the student union, in 1995. He did his intercalated BSc at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School in 1994. He did his house jobs and general professional training in London, obtaining his MRCP qualification in 1999. His specialist registrar training in Cardiology was on the NE Thames rotation from 2000 to 2010, when he obtained his certificate of completion of training. He was awarded Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP) in 2014 in recognition of his contribution to education and training.

James completed his sub-specialist training in intervention at two internationally renowned cardiac units, St Bartholomew’s and the London Chest Hospital. He gained exposure to and was involved in the development of novel ways of doing day-case work, the development of heart attack services and experience with new interventional techniques. In his final year he also did General Internal Medicine at the Royal London Hospital and is dual accredited in this, although has not practiced General Medicine since then. He worked as a locum consultant for Barts and the London NHS Trust prior to his appointment in Southampton.

James has a strong background in Medical Education and spent a year as an Education Research Fellow at the Royal College of Physicians in 2003, where he was involved in the development of new assessment methods that are now used for doctors in training. He taught as faculty for the RCP Doctors as Educators programme for many years. He has an interest in the use of simulators to train cardiologists and was involved in this at a national level, including developing a new course. He was the co-organiser of the SW England and Wales Cardiology region ST3 simulation course until 2020. He is published in education and has been a peer reviewer of education papers. He is a Wessex Deanery Educational Supervisor and contributed to deanery activity for many years. He has been a representative on two national education committees.

With a British Heart Foundation Studentship grant he undertook basic science research from 2004-2007 with Professor Sir Salvador Moncada’s group at University College London. This led to the award of a PhD in Cell Biology. He studied the role of mitochondria and reactive oxygen species in cardiovascular aging and disease. He has also been involved in clinical research, which has been presented and published at international meetings. James actively contributes to the coronary research group at Southampton, regularly participating in clinical trials and is one of the highest volume recruiter to trials locally. He has been PI for two renal denervation trials.

​James is involved in the organisation of cardiology services at both a regional and national level. He was the chair of the Wessex Cardiovascular Network Cardiac Forum, until 2020. James is also the current the SE network Interventional Cardiology Lead, being responsible for advising at a regional level on the implementation of Cardiac services in SE England. He was previously the chair of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight (HIOW) ICB Cardiology delivery board.

​James enjoys spending time with his wife Olive and two daughters Annabelle and Rebecca in Lymington where they live. He grew up in Cowes (IOW) and has a lifelong love of sailing. He is an experienced yacht racer having competed in numerous events such as the Fastnet, Transatlantic and Sydney-Hobart races. He now enjoys getting on the water when time allows, this is mainly on Thursday night racing on a First 34.7, which he co-owns with friends or in his RIB with family and friends. It is fair to say he is probably past his best days as a bowman and he can now be regularly found to the aft end of the boat! He also enjoys cycling, hill walking (having trekked in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nepal), skiing and collecting wine. He now keeps fit on his Concept 2 ergo.

Media coverage and other links for Dr Wilkinson:
To see Dr Wilkinson’s media coverage including newspaper coverage, television and radio interviews please click here and search for relevant news coverage blogs.
​To see Dr Wilkinson’s BBC South Today television interview on simulation training please see here.
To view Dr Wilkinson’s patient satisfaction data please click here. Certificate of Excellence awarded for patient feedback in 2017.
To view Dr Wilkinson’s procedure data please click here.
To view Dr Wilkinson’s University Hospital Southampton NHS profile please click here.
To view Dr Wilkinson’s BUPA profile please click here.

Patient satisfaction reviews for Dr Wilkinson

Dr Wilkinson collects patient reviews by two methods:

Doctify (see summary below), patients are encouraged to leave reviews and may be sent a single text message by the team after clinic requesting an online Doctify review. Doctify reviews need invitations from our office team in order for you to complete these. Although he has been signed up to this for a while Dr Wilkinson has only actively been using this service since November 2025

​iWantGreatCare, which he has used since 2013 and you can see his reviews here. You can complete an online patient satisfaction questionnaire on Dr Wilkinson on iWantGreatCare by clicking here